fear

Distinctions

eimah (אימה)

Root א-י-ם. Ibn Ezra (Shemos 23:27): eimah is the emotive feeling of being afraid, as against pachad, the outward manifestation of fear. Rashi (Shemos 15:16): eimah and pachad differ as fear of a distant threat differs from fear of one close at hand; the versions of Rashi and the other commentators disagree on which is which, so the far/near assignment cannot be relied on for a rendering. Either way, the column observes, a man reacts differently to hearing news of a threat than to meeting one, and Hebrew registers those differing fight-or-flight responses in two otherwise synonymous words.

pachad (פחד)

Root פ-ח-ד. Rashi (Devarim 11:25), distinguishing it from morah, repeats the far/near distinction there and adds a second one: pachad is a sudden fear, morah a fear pent up for some time. Wertheimer: pachad is the less intense, sudden but short-lived; and it applies only to human beings, who have the intellect to grasp what a danger implies, whereas the other words apply to animals too, whose instinct reacts without comprehension. Ibn Ezra: the outward manifestation of fear.

yirah / morah (יראה / מורא)

Root י-ר-א. Rashi (Devarim 11:25): the fear that has remained pent up for some time. Wertheimer: the more intense type, because it is continual and builds on itself. The Beis HaLevi (Rabbi Yosef Dov Soloveitchik, parashas Vayigash): yirah is fear of what one anticipates might happen, as against daagah, worry over what one foresees will happen.

daagah (דאגה)

Root ד-א-ג. Rashi (Yoma 75a): fear of losing something one has; Rashi (Gittin 70a): fear of the arrival of a frightening situation, such as famine or invasion. Shlomo HaMelech's counsel, דאגה בלב איש ישחנה (Mishlei 12:25): speak it out to others, for worry confined to finite words loses its limitlessness; on the second reading, distract oneself with other matters. Beis HaLevi: worry over what is foreseen as certain. Wertheimer: not the worrying itself but the despondency of one steeped in anxious fright; the column notes that this echoes Franklin Delano Roosevelt's inaugural line that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.

Rendering guidance

• אימתה ופחד (Shemos 15:16): "terror and dread" or "dread and fright"; two words, two renderings. Since the far/near assignment is disputed, do not build a rendering on it; Ibn Ezra's inner/outer split (the feeling, then its manifestation) is the safer basis for the pair.
• פחדכם ומוראכם (Devarim 11:25): "the fright of you and the fear of you," keeping pachad as the sudden start and morah as the settled fear.
• Standalone יראה of a threat: "fear." Standalone פחד: "fright" when the suddenness matters, "fear" otherwise, but never "terror" as if it were the graver word.
• דאגה: "worry" or "anxiety," never "fear"; Mishlei 12:25 reads "worry in a man's heart."
• Trap: English "fear" absorbs all four. When the pasuk pairs or lists them, or a derashah turns on the sequence, give each its own word.
• Trap: "dread" is a fair rendering of eimah but also of settled morah; reserve it for eimah when both are in play.
• Scope: the article treats fear as the emotion before a threat. Yiras Shamayim as awe or reverence is a separate usage it does not take up; do not import rulings for that from here.

Sources

Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein, "Afraid of Fright or Ready to Fight," What's in a Word?, Ohr Somayach, 25 Cheshvan 5777 (2016-11-26): raw text in sources/whats-in-a-word/raw/7018-afraid-of-fright-or-ready-to-fight.md. Primary loci the article cites: Rashi to Shemos 15:16 and Devarim 11:25; Ibn Ezra to Shemos 23:27; Rashi to Yoma 75a and Gittin 70a; Mishlei 12:25; Beis HaLevi, parashas Vayigash; Rabbi Shlomo Aharon Wertheimer on pachad, morah, and daagah.